Kenyan breaks marathon record

BEDAZZLING BERLIN:Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge, widely seen as the greatest marathon runner of the modern era, smashed the world marathon record by 1 minute, 18 seconds

Reuters, BERLIN

Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge crosses the finish line yesterday to win the Berlin Marathon, setting a new world record.

Photo: AFP

Kenya’s Olympic marathon champion Eliud Kipchoge yesterday set a sensational world record over the distance, shaving more than a minute off the previous best with a dazzling run in the German capital, to land the one major running accomplishment that had eluded him.

The 33-year-old, widely seen as the greatest marathon runner of the modern era, ran an official time of time of 2 hours, 1 minute and 39 seconds on a sunny and warm autumn day along the flat inner-city course to beat Dennis Kimetto’s world best by 1 minute, 18 seconds in Berlin back in 2014.

“I lack words to describe this day,” said a beaming Kipchoge, a former world champion over 5,000m and marathon gold medalist at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. “I am really grateful, happy to smash the world record.

“They say you can miss it twice, but not third time. So I want to thank everyone who has helped me,” Kipchoge, who last year took part in the Nike Breaking Two project, where he ran 2 hours, 25 seconds with the aid of “illegal” in and out pacemakers.

He started off with a sizzling pace and quickly shook off his biggest opponent, Wilson Kipsang, to make it a one-man race.

It was clear after the opening few kilometers that Kipchoge’s only opponent would be the clock and his three pacemakers were pushed to the limit to keep the tempo high.

However, even after the last one peeled off after 25 kilometers, Kipchoge showed no sign of slowing, passing the 30km mark in 1:26:45, with a pace of 2:52 per 1,000m.

“It was hard. I ran my own race. I trusted my trainers, my program and my coach. That’s what pushed me in the last kilometers,” he said.

Kipchoge kept up the pace to sprint through the Brandenburg Gate and complete a world record run, cementing his reputation as one of the world’s greatest runners.

This story has been viewed 1960 times.

Comments will be moderated. Remarks containing abusive and obscene language, personal attacks of any kind or promotion will be removed and the user banned.